The San Francisco Chronicle reprinted one of George Will’s editorials, “Licensed to Drink,” from the Washington Post. In it, he critiques Choose Responsibility, the new advocacy organization founded by John M. McCardell Jr., the former Dean of of Middlebury College in Vermont. Having watched young people at his college, he decided that the drinking age of 21 was making the problem worse rather than helping it, which was the goal of raising it. I don’t often agree with George Will and in my opinion he’s sometimes a right wing nutjob, albeit more articulate than most, but he has some thoughtful ideas expressed in this piece, and surprisingly he isn’t against it. Given that he was a speech writer for Ronald Reagan, who gave in to MADD and came up with “Just Say No,” that was a something of a surprise to say the least. But this is a debate that’s not going away, and it’s interesting to hear about from so unlikely a source.
The Opening of CBC
The opening Welcome & Keynote Address took place bright and early Thursday morning, right after the first round of seminars, which began at 8:15 a.m.
Brewers Association founder Charlie Papazian opened the conference in Austin, Texas, Thursday morning.
BA Director Paul Gatza went over the statistics and sales and growth numbers for the craft beer industry.
Then Texas populist Jim Hightower entertained the audience with tales of Austin weirdness and left us with this great quote about why people live in Austin. “We’re here because we’re not all there.”
Matt Brynildson from Firestone Walker Brewing accepting the Russell Schehrer Award for Innovation in Brewing from Steve Bradt of Free State Brewing.
Brynildson addresses the crowd.
Bradt giving the Brewers Association Recognition Award to Don Barkley, who accepted it on behalf of Jack McAuliffe, founder of New Albion Brewing Company, who was unable to be present.
Keynote speaker Vinnie Cilurzo, from Russian River Brewing.
Victories Down Under
You may recall that at the end of January, there was an announcement that 19 American craft brewers entered their beers in the the Australian International Beer Awards (AIBA )through the Brewers Association‘s Export Development Program (or EDP). Yesterday the results were announced with several American breweries winning medals. Now the Australian awards are somewhat different than the GABF or World Cup medals. The beers are judged in a similar fashion and assigned points with a total possible of 20, but instead of choosing first, second and third, any and every beer that gets above 17 points receives a gold medal, 15.5-16.5 receives a silver and 14-15 for a bronze medal. There is a Grand Champion Trophy for the Highest Scoring Beer, and this year it is Weihenstephan Kristall from Germany’s Weihenstephan Brewery. There’s also about a dozen additional awards such as “Champion Ale” and the “Best Packaging Award.”
The biggest victory by an American brewery went to Deschutes Brewing of Bend, Oregon, who won the International Malting Company Trophy for Champion Large International Brewery. They also won the Veolia Environmental Services Trophy for
Champion Stout for their Obsidian Stout.
Here’s how the American brewers fared:
Gold Medals:
Blue Point Brewing: Winter Ale
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Brown Ale
Boston Beer Co.: Long Shot Old Ale
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Honey Porter
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Winter Lager
BridgePort Brewing: BridgePort India Pale Ale
Deschutes Brewery: Mirror Pond Pale Ale
Deschutes Brewery: Cinder Cone Red
Deschutes Brewery: Black Butte Porter
Deschutes Brewery: Obsidian Stout
Great Divide Brewing: Hercules Double India Pale Ale
Matt Brewing: Imperial IPA
Pelican Pub Brewery: Doryman’s Dark Ale
Pelican Pub Brewery: Kiwanda Cream Ale
Sprecher Brewing: Imperial Stout
Stone Brewing: Stone Imperial Russian Stout
Trumer Braurei: Trumer Pils
Silver Medals:
21st Amendment Brewery: 21A IPA
Blue Point Brewing: Hoptical Illusion
Boston Beer Co.: Long Shot Dortmunder
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Boston Lager
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Black Lager
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Light
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Pale Ale
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Boston Ale
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Cream Stout
Deschutes Brewery: Inversion IPA
Deschutes Brewery: Hop Henge IPA
Deschutes Brewery: Cascade Ale
Deschutes Brewery: Jubelale
Deschutes Brewery: Hop Trip
Deschutes Brewery: Bachelor ESB
Firestone Walker Brewing: Firestone Pale Ale
Firestone Walker Brewing: Firestone Bravo Brown
Flying Dog Ales: Doggie Style Classic Pale Ale
Great Divide Brewing: Titan India Pale Ale
Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales: Maracaibo Especial
Left Hand Brewing: Sawtooth Ale
Matt Brewing: Saranac Pale Ale
Odell Brewing: 90 Shilling
Odell Brewing: Cutthroat Porter
Odell Brewing: East Street Wheat
Pelican Pub Brewery: India Pelican Ale
Pelican Pub Brewery: Tsunami Stout
Pelican Pub Brewery: Saison du Pelican
Pelican Pub Brewery: Bridal Ale
Pelican Pub Brewery: Grand Cru de Pelican
Pelican Pub Brewery: Stormwatcher’s Winterfest
Pelican Pub Brewery: MacPelican’s Wee Heavy Strong Scotch Ale
Rogue Ales: Hazelnut Brown Nectar
Rogue Ales: American Amber
Rogue Ales: Mocha Porter
Sprecher Brewing: Dopple Bock
Widmer Brothers Brewing: Widmer W’07 Pale Ale
Bronze Medals:
Blue Point Brewing: Toasted Lager
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Octoberfest
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Double Bock
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Hefeweizen
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Cranberry Lambic
Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Scotch Ale
BridgePort Brewing: Blue Heron
BridgePort Brewing: Beertown Brown
Deschutes Brewery: Abyss
Flying Dog Ales: Old Scratch Amber Lager
Flying Dog Ales: Gonzo Imperial Porter
Great Divide Brewing: Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout
Issaquah Brewhouse: Menage A Frog
Kona Brewing: Fire Rock Pale Ale
Left Hand Brewing: Black Jack Porter
Left Hand Brewing: Milk Stout
Odell Brewing: 5 Barrel Pale Ale
Pelican Pub Brewery: MacPelican’s Scottish Style Ale
Rogue Ales: Juniper Pale Ale
Rogue Ales: Shakespeare Stout
Rogue Ales: Smoke Ale
Shipyard Brewing: Shipyard Chamberlain Pale Ale
Shipyard Brewing: Brewers Choice Honey Porter
Shipyard Brewing: SeaDog Bluepaw Wildberry Wheat Ale
Sprecher Brewing: Piper’s Scotch Ale
Stone Brewing: Stone IPA
Widmer Brothers Brewing: Broken Halo IPA
Widmer Brothers Brewing: Drop Top Amber Ale
Widmer Brothers Brewing: Widmer Hefeweizen
CBC Brewers Reception
The BA hosted a Brewers Reception at Stubbs Bar-B-Que in downtown Austin Wednesday night before the official start to the annual Craft Brewers Conference. There was great food and beer from local breweries. Some highlights were the Rye Pale Ale from the Real Ale Brewery here in Austin and a nice barleywine, though I can’t recall who made that one.
A local sign proclaims Austin as Beer Land, Texas.
The reception was held outdoors in this great open space with a stage on one end and bars and buffet tables ringing the area.
Brian Dunn (owner of Great Divide) and his new director of brewing operations, Brit Antrim, with Joanne Carilli from White Labs.
Steve Hindy (Brooklyn Brewery), Kim Jordan (New Belgium), Dave Keene (The Toronado in SF), Eddie Friedland (former owner of Philadelphia’s Friedland Distributing) and Vinnie Cilurzo (Russian River).
Ralph Olson, the Big Cheese from HopUnion. If you look carefully in between his “Sponsor” and “Exhibitor” badge you can see his officially “the Big Cheese.”
Horst Dornbusch and his wife, Ralph Olson and Jeannine Marois, who puts on the Le Mondial de la Bière.
Charlie Papazian leads a toast the memory of Linda Starck.
Daniel and Julie Bradford and Amy from All About Beer magazine.
The Rolling Boil Blues Band took the stage in the last hour of the reception.
Which got the crowd up and dancing.
Tom Dalldorf does his Pete Townsend impression.
Victory for Families
Excellent news from Oregon: the OLCC will allow minors to attend the Oregon Brewers Festival with their parents. Here’s the press release:
The Oregon Brewers Festival (OBF) is pleased to announce that, as in the past, minors under age 21 will be allowed all-hours access to the 20th annual Oregon Brewers Festival, provided they are accompanied by a parent. The Oregon Liquor Control Commission granted permission for minors/parents to attend after receiving a new OBF compliance plan. The internationally-recognized craft beer festival will be held July 26-29 at Tom McCall Waterfront Park.
“After thoroughly reviewing the Oregon Brewers Festival’s amended proposal, we believe it meets our licensing and enforcement concerns regarding minor patronage at the 2007 festival,” explained Rudy Williams, OLCC deputy director. “We appreciate the OBF’s willingness to work with the OLCC to help satisfy the public safety interests of Oregonians.”
“We are thrilled that the OLCC has made this decision,” said Art Larrance, founder of the OBF. “The festival has a long-standing history of being a family-friendly event. We promote responsible drinking, and as a result, we have responsible attendees who come together to celebrate our local culture.”
Minors will only be allowed at the OBF with a parent; guardians are not acceptable. Minors are informed of and encouraged to attend the root beer garden, in which complimentary handcrafted root beer is served in cups (no mugs allowed) for all minors and designated drivers.
Bound for Texas
I’m flying to Austin with the family this morning for the Craft Brewers Conference. It will a pretty busy few days, but I’ll try to post photos and a little narrative from the conference. The week after I’ll be taking some time off and taking my son, Porter, to Mission Control and the Space Center in Houston, then on to Dallas to see some friends. We’ll find time to stop at a few breweries on the way, of course.
First stop Austin and the annual Craft Brewer Conference.
Fill ‘Er Up, Please
The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), Great Britain’s beer advocacy group has just completed a survey of pubs and how full they fill your pint, and it doesn’t look good. They’re calling for people to sign an online petition and asking the Prime Minister to fix the problem. In addition to CAMRA’s figures, a Telegraph story today has additional details.
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Skinny Dipping Returns
New Belgium’s seasonal Skinny Dip, which debuted least year, is returning this month through September as their summer seasonal. From the press release:
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Making Hay While the Sun Shines
The second of BridgePort’s new seasonal series will be out shortly. From the description, it sounds like it may be a good candidate for Lew Bryson’s “Session Beer Project.” We’ll know more, of course, when the samples start arriving.
BridgePort Brewing Co. is encouraging beer lovers to “Make hay while the sun shines,” an adage meaning to take advantage of any good opportunity that comes along. There’s no better truism for BridgePort’s new summer seasonal, Haymaker Extra Pale Ale: Haymaker is an ideal beer with which to take full benefit of the long summer days. Haymaker will appear on shelves and on draft the first part of May.
A refreshing extra pale ale, Haymaker features a distinct blend of four malts and three varieties of hops that create a slightly complex ale with a light body and a crisp finish. Its alcohol by volume of 5.3% complements the low bitterness — 15 bittering units — and original gravity of 12.8 degrees Plato. Bright golden in color, it can best be described as “sunshine in a glass.”
“We were looking to expand our seasonal lineup, and an extra pale ale was the ideal choice,” explained head brewmaster Karl Ockert. “We couldn’t be more pleased with the resulting color and flavor profile of the beer.”
Like the other two products in the BridgePort seasonal series, Haymaker’s packaging is a divergence from the BridgePort brand family. The beer’s label and six-pack carrier focus on a whimsical red rooster with a fiery crown standing upon a weathervane, set against the backdrop of a round sun bursting forth with rays of light. The rooster is tossing back an outline of a pint, which is filled with the golden sunlight. The blue sky and hay-colored fields evoke the warmth and imagery of summertime.
Haymaker is the second seasonal in a three part series, following BridgePort’s popular Beertown Brown. Haymaker will be available May through August, followed by Ebenezer Ale. The beer will be distributed in eight Western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Washington.
Chronicle Critiques Cantillon
After so many horribly abysmal crimes against beer, I’m very happy to be able say that a San Francisco Chronicle article on Friday, “Cantillon, a brew for wine lovers,” was actually a very good overview of the historic Brussels brewery. It was written by freelancer Derek Schneider, who also writes a food (and wine) blog, An Obsession with Food. He provides a nice introduction to Cantillon’s methods, what makes them unique and even provides some tasting notes.
My only criticism is that the Chronicle sells the piece through its title where they can’t let Cantillon stand on its own two feet. They have to make it a beer that winos will love, too, which I find a little annoying. Cantillon is a beer for beer lovers, too, as well, and can be enjoyed by anyone with a developed palate who likes complex flavors. Always having to compare everything to their revered wine seems to me to distort reality into a world where all grapes are good and barley is bad. I suspect that was the only way Schneider could sell the piece to the Chronicle, if wine was somehow still central in a beer article.
But that criticism aside, it was certainly good to see an otherwise positive beer article in San Francisco. Now if we could only get their management to actually like it, too, now that would be something.